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Tips to become more hirable, strengthen your personal brand and build a remarkable web presence.Fri, 31 Jul 2015 22:18:23 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.27 Key Google Apps for Your Businesshttp://blog.brandyourself.com/social-media/7-key-google-apps-for-your-business/
http://blog.brandyourself.com/social-media/7-key-google-apps-for-your-business/#commentsFri, 26 Nov 2010 21:01:52 +0000Keith McIlvainehttp://blog.brand-yourself.com/?p=12568Google has made many tools available for individuals and businesses alike to make it easy to business anywhere. While the Google Wave was a great idea, it was certainly advanced for its time and too many of us didn’t quite know how to maximize its usage. Having said that, the Google selection of tools is definitely something everyone should consider using in some fashion.

Today I will highlight seven of Google’s tools that you should definitely consider using for your business:

Google Docs

Store your documents to the cloud and access them from anywhere, as well as share them with others. A great way for in-progress documents to be accessed, even on vacation, and updated by your colleagues on the go. Be smart about the documents you post here; if you have proprietary or sensitive information, then you may want to put it on a storage drive instead.

iGoogle

A great dashboard to make as your web homepage. Yes, you can search off this page, but more importantly, you are able to add your favorite news sources and blogs to read daily. This will quickly become your source to instantly see what is happening in the world and get your thoughts going for the day.

Analytics

Adding your web site and other web pages into Google Analytics will give you an easy overview of your site traffic. This is not a perfect solution, but rather a free and easy way to track data about your website. Want to see how many hits your site is getting? How long people are staying on the pages? Global breakdowns of visitors and how they are accessing your page? This makes it easy to see where your audience is coming from.

Google Voice

Sign up for a free phone number and get started. Are you in Georgia, but most of your market is located in Virginia? Get a Virginia-based number for free and have a great dashboard to access voicemail, make calls and forward to your mobile phone. Now Google Voice is an iPhone app.

Calendar

Forgetting what appointments are scheduled and worried about how to remind yourself? Google Calendar allows you to schedule appointments on the go and others may add appointments as well. Busy meeting week with customers? Add all the details into your calendar and never leave home without what you need, and access it from everywhere.

AdWords

Create an advertisement for your business and make it keyword-rich with Google AdWords. Have your business appear at the top of many search result pages and visible to a global audience. Visibility is critical to your business and spending money to make your business visible to a higher percentage of people is an important tactic to consider. When you make your annual budget, make sure you include funding for AdWords.

Google Alerts

As mentioned (too many times to count on Brand-yourself) you should add your company name, products, or other specific search terms into Google Alerts to stay informed of how you are being discussed. This is not a comprehensive solution but a means to provide insight of how you are being regarded by others.

These are just a selection of Google applications available for you to use and you should be careful and selective as to what you use for your business. Weigh your options carefully and use these as a starting point for your business. Anything that may make it easier for you to conduct business is something that makes sense to use. Choose wisely and be productive!

Are you using Google Alerts to track your personal brand? Or to track job opportunities? If you aren’t, you should. It’s easy and free.

You should already have a Google account, because GMail is essential for your job search – I’ve written about it here. And I hope you’ve already set up your Google profile, which gives you a free advertisement at the bottom of page one of a Google search on your name – I’ve written about that here.

Google Alerts is simple to set up and use. When you’ve created your alerts, Google will email you whenever it indexes the terms in your alert string.

Why would you want to do that?

To track your own name – if you’re publishing to improve your Internet profile, this is how you can measure your success. Every time somebody writes about you or your own writings get indexed, you’ll hear from Google. Just don’t get too depressed if you don’t hear from them too often.

To track keywords in a job search – suppose you have targeted a specific company and you want to know when they’ve hit the press (so you can be better informed as you try to find a way into the company). Just set up a Google alert for the company, product, or even an individual, and you’ll know – probably before they do!

To track trends in the area of your subject matter expertise – this works especially well if you’re doing something esoteric that doesn’t get much press.